VirtualBox installation failure on Windows

When I try to install VirtualBox 1.6.2, at the end of the installation it says "Rolling back action", removes all previously installed files and then the installation gives me the following message: "Sun xVM VirtualBox setup ended prematurely because of an error. Your system has not been modified. To install this program at a later time, please run the installation again."
UAC is disabled, I'm using the Administrator account and the last updates are installed. Computer is a Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450. I also have tried this on another PC (AMD Athlon 64 3400+, using Vista 64 SP1 too, and it worked fine)
I have tried closing at first and even uninstalling later all software that could create issues (Firewall, Antivirus, ...)
I'll include the MSI log (for the little I managed to understand from that it does seem that the issue is an error while installing some drivers)

To all who still have problems installing VBox: Please get the "Windows Installer CleanUp Utility" from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301/ and run it. It tries to clean up some things regarding the Windows installer database.

Also, re-registering the Windows installer service might help. For doing that, open a Windows command line and type:

To get some more information about this issue, please attach your "setupapi.log" (usually in C:\Windows) files here. Please delete the old "setupapi.log" files *before* starting the VBox installer to not mix old things up. Thanks.

I would like to add that I am having the same issue detailed in this ticket. I have tried the above suggestion of running Windows Installer Cleanup Utility and re-registering the Windows installer service. I still cannot install VirtualBox.

I am using Vista Ultimate x64. I have a Intel Q9450 with 8GB of RAM. I tried to install with 2.0.6 x64, and also 2.0.4 x64.

To all which VBox installation isn't working yet: Please attach your "setupapi.dev.log" (usually in C:\Windows\Inf) files here. Please delete the old "setupapi.dev.log" files *before* starting the VBox installer to not mix old things up. This should give me a lot more detail especially for Vista. Thanks.

I'm experiencing the same issue. You will find attached my setupapi.log file and I have also noticed that everytime I run the install there are several (up to 11) error logged in the system log for applications. The source of these is a crypt32. I don't understand the link but it's clearly correlated to my attempts to install VB (2.1.0 -- VirtualBox-2.1.0-41146-Win_x86.msi). My system runs Win XP SP3.

I am also experiencing this problem, on Windows Vista 64, UAC and DEP are turned off, VirtualBox version 2.1.0. Also if i try and change directory by clicking on the browse button the installer crashes. I do not know if this is a related problem.

Same issue here with VirtualBox 2.1 under Vista Ultimate w/ SP1 (64bit) (UAC disabled)
Just tried to create the log but when the installer runs no new file is made.
Installed the MS fix linked above but that didn't help.

Update. On the Windows 7 Beta build 7000, the install path is set to default 64-bit. So that is one error down. But the install still fails. I also noticed that clicking the change install path button doesn't make WinInstaller fail.

I'll clean up this defect as driver signing is unrelated. To restate: the VirtualBox drivers are signed, but not WHQL certified. This has no impact on the installation except for the additional dialogs asking for permission to install the drivers.

Quick comment: Folks, I had same issue last night trying to install VirtualBox-2.1.0-41146-Win_x86.msi on my wife's HP laptop (XP - not sure which SP).
The install rolls back after the 2nd 'install anyway' dialog as reported above.
Sorry - don't have logs etc available as I write this.

I downloaded 2.1.2 following the links from sun.com. On XPsp3 with Bitdefender Firewall NDIS Filter Driver and Nvidia nForce on-board interface (plus some Nvidia Network Bus Enumerator device), installation with the host network interface fails. If I disable that portion of the install, installation is successful. This looks like the relevant log section:

I was unable to install version 2.1.2. I already had 2.1.0 installed on my machine.

Setup:
Windows XP SP3
VMWare co-installed, but I tried to disable all relevant services at startup to prevent clashes.

The first time it failed, I got a message that the Host Interface Networking Driver failed to install. After I clicked ok on this dialog box, the installation rolled back. Successive installation attempts still fail, but they don't tell me about this networking driver. Instead, they just roll back automatically.

DIFXAPP: ERROR: RETURN UpdateDriverForPlugAndPlayDevices. (Error code 0xE0000217: A service installation section in this INF is invalid.)

I noticed that my Host Networking Interface driver was messed up in the Device Manager. It had the yellow exclamation mark on the icon. I uninstalled this driver, reran the installation, and it worked that time! I was able to boot into one of my VMs and use the network, so all seems to be back to normal.

Good news: We believe to have fixed the problem in a development build recently. To test this build please send me an email to <my nickname> at sun dot com (to prevent spam). I'll send you a download location to try out this build then.

I couldn't delete these in devmgmt.msc so I used RegEdit (backed up registry!) to find all keys with "VirtualBox" and I deleted these keys (some required me to change permissions before allowing me to delete them), then rebooted.

I installed the Beta, it failed, then I installed the Beta again and it worked.

So I cannot confirm if the Beta worked or whether the old device drivers were causing a conflict.

I had reported earlier the inability to install the network component.
Seems there was something funky with my network setup, as nic1394 was
marked as non-working, and trying to re-install the driver just resulted
in an error of 'cannot find the file specified', with, of course, no file
name provided. In searching the web for this error, it began to look
like I'd have to do a re-install of Windows, since my "repair install"
did not change the state of the nic1394 device. Upon doing this re-install
of Windows XP SP2, and re-doing SP3, and any other security patch, I was
able to install VirtualBox with both the USB and the Host Interface drivers.

I had no problems with the 2.1.2. I decided to install the 2.1.4, that didn't work properly. So, I returned to the 2.1.2, the Installer crashed.
I tired again to install the 2.1.2, I have, now, the problem of the rollinback. For the installation of the 2.1.4, it's the same problem.
I can't use my VM.

this will tell the installer to make a verbose logging to the <log_file_name> file and will also fill the setupapi log information to setupapi log file mentioned in step#2

After the above steps could you post me the <log_file_name> file mentioned in Step#3 and newly created setupapi log files (<windir>/setupapi.log for XP or <windir>/inf/setupapi.dev.log and <windir>/inf/setupapi.app.log on Vista) ?

Accept all the defaults. Then it pauses in the progress bar with the slightest sliver
of progress made of the install. It pauses 15 seconds. Then a dialog opens that says
"The system cannot open the device or file specified" with a retry and cancel. Retry
doesn't do anything. Then you cancel and you get a second dialog: "The installer has
encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem
with this package. The error code is 2755."

Run into the same problem recently. Had VirtualBox-2.0.4-38406-Win_x86 working fine (with the network driver) and wanted to updated.
The uninstall for the previous version has crashed (failed to finish) - I suspect failing to remove the network driver. Now I cannot install the new version VirtualBox-2.1.4-42893-Win_x86.

Verbose logging stopped: 2009-4-2 20:28:16

1) You have short file names disabled (this is not the default setting)... VirtualBox and/or Windows Installer should not be using short file names, only legacy apps (from 15+ years ago) should need to use them.
2) You are running Vista (C:\Documents and Settings is no longer the location of user profiles).
3) Your username in Windows is not ztt (that appears to be what it is).
4) You did some crazy stuff to your Windows profile layout and broke everything.

A double backslash is ignored (Windows treats it as one backslash) and the ~ names are short file names which SHOULD correspond to the proper long ones (if you know how to use cmd.exe you can see short file names with dir /-x).

I installed VirtualBox-2.2.0-45846-Win.exe (on Windows XP SP3), then uninstalled it due to some networking issues. I then tried to reinstall it, and it would rollback each time, without installing.

I found that when it uninstalled the first time, it removed "c:\windows\inf\oem72.inf", and possibly "c:\windows\inf\oem72.pnf" from the system, which it needed to reinstall. It shouldn't be removing those files in the first place.

Anyhow, I had a backup of those two files, so I placed them back in the "c:\windows\inf\" folder, and it reinstalled without a problem.

I just tried to upgrade from 2.1.4 to 2.2.0 on WinXP SP3. The result was a bad bridged network driver that would not initialize. Attempts to uninstall resulted in the rollback everyone has been seeing here.

The fix was to uninstall the bridged network driver in the Windows device manager. Again, an attempt to uninstall 2.2.0 resulted in rollback. However, using the Change and Repair options in the Install/Remove programs for Virtual Box then actually did appear to repair the VirtualBox installation - no rollback.

I ran a virtual machine and discovered all was well, except that I could not get network access (Bridged network). I then did a normal uninstall and reinstall of 2.2.0 and all is now well, including bridged networking

I suspect the problem may be an artifact of not rebooting before installing 2.2.0.

To all having issues with bridged interfaces not being displayed or having the install problems:
Please send me a mail at Mikhail dot Sennikovsky at sun dot com. I'll then send you a link to a new test VBox version containing installation fixes.

To all not being able to uninstall VBox 2.2:
Please see my comment 6 to #3701

As we gonna release a new version of VBox soon, please write me an e-mail to pentagonik at sun dot com to get the latest test version of VBox which now should be possible to install on your system. Please let me also know your host OS (Windows only!) and a short error description plus VBox version you tried to install before. Thanks!

I can confirm this issue can be fixed by repairing the current install, reboot, install the new version.
I did this on a XP SP3 box upgrading from 2.2.0-45846 to 2.2.2-r46594.

My error was DIFXAPP: ERROR 0x2 encountered while opening persistent-info key for component '{B7D782D2-96DF-4775-A0E1-A76CF7B04B65}'.
I thought it had to do with my disabled Host-Only NIC, but the install still failed with the same error after I enabled it.

Hi,
I'm having issues and the same kind of problems upgrading from 2.2.0 to 2.2.2 on Vista Business SP1, on a Dell Vostro 420 (Intel core 2 Quad Q9550).
Tried to:
upgrade from 2.2.0 to 2.2.2
uninstall 2.2.0
repair installation
the installer fix from microsoft

Replying to Yuriy_KH and others seeing problem with 2.2.0 to 2.2.2 update:
You have to uninstall the 2.2.0 before installing the 2.2.2.
In case you have issues with uninstalling VBox 2.2, please follow the instructions here on how to solve them

got this same thing upgrading 2.2.0 to 2.2.2
Fix was to download the CleanUp util, instruct it to remove settings for virtualbox 2.2.0
then install 2.2.2
which I *think* is the equivalent of uninstalling then installing fresh. Somewhat frustrating.
Thanks!
-=r

Windows Vista 32-bit
I had virtualbox 3.02 installed, and I decided to upgrade when VB 3.04 came out. I ran the installer, it gave me the "setup ended prematurely" message. At which point my 3.02 install was now borked. I've tried reinstalling, 3.04,3.02,and 3.00 with no success. Same problem each time. I can't uninstall them, because they do not register as installed.

Please help, I'm going crazy and I need to work on items that are in my virtual machine!

Every time I try it I get the following error message in my setupapi.dev.log:

I've tried deleting all the vbox* folders in the DriverStore\FileRepository before the install, I've tried shutting off my AV (Eset Nod32 4.0.314.0). I have no other active AV/Antispyware (except windows defender I guess).

restarted again and ran it one last time and it worked! My guess is that it is some sort of combination of deleting all of the vbox* files (wherever they may hide, mostly in windows\system32), and then restarting to free up the final file locks.

I had this problem in Windows XP SP3 installing VirtualBox 3.0.4. It turned out that I was running with c:\documents and settings\<user>\Local Settings\Temp encrypted due to a local edict.
I assume that the unpacked install bundle was then inaccessible by the system parts of MSI. Cleaning, unencrypting my temp directory and reinstalling worked a treat.

I haven't been able to install any update since 2.2.0. Every single time it does the "rolling back action" error. It's really getting frustrating. No amount of restarting, disabling AV etc. helps. I'm on XP SP2.

I get an error 1620 when trying to install the latest version (3.2.6). I completely uninstalled VirtualBox and still got the same error on Windows 7 x64.
I then tried the previous version and it installed fine, but no matter what I try, I cant get the newest to install..

Got error 2755 during preparing to installation.Solved by verifiying folder windows\installer - cant own it or edit rights.
After deleting it (explorer with admin rights) and creating it again, all installed fine.